In general, the laundering machine removes various kinds of contaminants from clothes and beddings by using a softening action of detergent, friction of water flow and impacts applied to laundry caused by rotation of a pulsator or a drum. Current full automatic laundering machine carries out a series of courses of washing, rinsing, spinning, and so on automatically without any intervention of a user.
It is a current trend that demands for the drum type laundering machine increase gradually, which, not only enables to reduce a total height, but also does not cause problems of entangling and crumpling of the laundry in comparison to a pulsator type laundering machine in which a washing tub rotates in an upright position.
A structure of the laundering machine will be described briefly. The laundering machine is provided with a body cabinet which forms an exterior of the laundering machine, a tub in the body cabinet supported by dampers and springs for holding washing water, and a cylindrical drum in the tub for placing the laundry therein, wherein the drum has driving power applied thereto by a driving unit, for washing the laundry placed therein.
The laundering machine is provided with a scheduling function for operating the laundering machine at a preset time by a user's selection. That is, once the user sets an operation time, the laundering machine performs washing operation according to scheduled settings as the preset operation time comes.
In the meantime, recently, a system is put into practice, in which cheap electricity is used at a midnight period or a selected time period when use of electric power is small, avoiding a time period when the use of electric power increases sharply (for an example, midnight electricity, saving electricity, and so on, and hereafter called as saving electricity).
In a case of the scheduling function of the related art laundering machine, a schedule is set to start washing (or drying) operation after a time period from a time point when the operation is set.
Therefore, the user is required to set a schedule such that an operation starting time is set by subtracting the present time when the user makes the operation schedule from the operation starting time, which requires the user's personal calculation that is inconvenient and cumbersome to the user.
Moreover, in order to make the scheduled operation in the saving electricity time period, there is inconvenience of calculating the scheduled operation time, taking both the scheduled operation time and the saving electricity time period into account.
Moreover, since a time period of the saving electricity varies with countries, regions, and so on, the user is required to know each of the saving electricity time periods, and has inconvenience of producing and setting the scheduled operation time.
Moreover, the saving electricity time period is mostly a midnight time period after twelve o'clock. Therefore, if the laundering machine is used in the saving electricity time period, operation noise from the laundering machine gives inconvenience to the user as well as neighbors.
Furthermore, in a case the scheduled operation is set to be made in the saving electricity time period, the scheduled operation is finished in the midnight time period, leaving spun or dried laundry in the laundering machine for a long time period to cause crumpling at the laundry.